TRUE TO HIS COUNTRY

A young couple struggles to make sense of a life upended by the Civil War.

Cochran’s historical novel centers around the struggles of his own great-grandfather and grandmother, Charles and Charlotte Taylor, who had already endured a lifetime of heartache before the Civil War. As a child, Charlotte had lost her parents to illness on a grueling Atlantic crossing from her native Ulster in the spring of 1850, a life-altering tragedy that left her in her aunt and uncle’s care in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Charles has experienced the pain of losing his first wife, Molly Kelly, to Gideon Butler, a rival suitor, whom he encounters—with unpleasant results—as a fellow enlistee in the 10th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Regiment. It’s not an era for hearts on sleeves, as the business of survival upends everything they’ve known. Charles “do[es] not relish the thought of being shot at, but it is what I signed up to do,” he says. “My duty calls.” These same qualities, Charlotte tells her foster mother, Julia Filley, are sufficient grounds for marrying him, their 12-year age difference aside (“I needed a man who had experienced life’s woes,” she says). A similar weariness overtakes Charles as his regiment continues to fight. The Confederates he initially saw as misguided rivals now strike him as incorrigible “traitors and fools,” for one simple reason: “They have killed and wounded my friends.” The author effectively conveys the enormous human cost of the conflict. It’s difficult to describe the Civil War in simple terms, but Cochran rises to that challenge through this small slice of its effects on his ancestors. His deft blending of historical materials and first-person narrative makes for a personal, yet powerful approach, rounded out by letters and diary excerpts that ring true in today’s polarized climate, as Charles pointedly asks himself: “If states can come and go from our country, then what are we?” A succinct, eloquently detailed depiction of the fog of war.

A well-crafted, incisive exploration of America’s bloodiest conflict.